After 'crashing' earlier in the week, Bitcoin soared in the last 24 hours following confirmation from the CFTC that it has approved regulated futures (and options) trading on CME, CBOE, and Cantor. This sent the price back above $11,000 and shifted the cryptocurrency to become the sixth most-circulated currency in the world.

Bitcoin had, by all accounts, a remarkably volatile week, losing $3 bln in market cap in just 90 minutes as the price slid from $11,400 to close to $9,000 (on some exchanges it flash-crashed to the low $8,000s). Nevertheless, within 36 hours, the cryptocurrency has rebounded to over $11,000.

As CoinTelegraph reports,the CFTC news quickly rippled out across the industry and media, with a stream of delighted bullish statements gracing Twitter and other platforms.

“It’s an orgy” is how one strategist described the breaking news that US regulators have approved Bitcoin futures to start this month.

Digital Currency Group CEO Barry Silbert said on CNBC: “I think it is going to enable finally the approval of Bitcoin ETFs, and other digital currency ETFs, which is game-changing,” he added.

And Bitcoin prices jumped...

As did Ethereum...

At a value of Bitcoin at around $11,000 each, the total value of all Bitcoins in circulation is around $180 billion, which as CoinTelegraph details means Bitcoin is now the sixth most circulated currency in the world, behind five super powers, and outranking the Pound, the Ruble, and the Won, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

While the number is substantial, should Bitcoin rise to $15,000, it will overtake the next highest circulating currency, the Rupee. The other four currencies outranking Bitcoin are the Yen, Yuan, Euro, and Dollar, all of which have dramatically greater levels of currency in circulation (the Dollar, for example, stands at $1.4 tln).

These numbers are, of course, somewhat skewed, because the value of notes in circulation is not reflective of the total value of a currency. Nevertheless, the numbers reveal the substantial power of Bitcoin in terms of currency interactions.

BTW, BTC had already broken out of a classic bullish pennant AND an inverse head and shoulders when the CFTC announcement was made. Was going back to ATH's no matter what some criminal regulator said on CNBC or where ever

Are you suggesting that major corporations never do insane or retarded things? Don't forget, Clown World is currently being run by giant international corporations like these, and doing retarded shit is right in their wheelhouse tbqh.

It doesn't matter if you think they are "retarded" for developing the platform. What matters is that they are developing the platform. Lots of resources are going into it and will be used to improve it. Things are actually getting done.

Great, so a bunch of big stupid Clownworld corporations are developing a platform with a monumental security hole built into its foundation. Until they fix that gaping flaw at the very core of the technology, it doesn't matter how much they gold-plate this thing, it'll still be a turd.

The comparison above is total BS. As Bitcoin does not exist physically, you shouldn't compare it to currency in circulation but to a broader monetary aggregate like M1 or M2. It will take some time (if ever) until Bitcoin reaches the size of M1 of the British pound.

99% of modern fiat money is simply digitized ledger entries that are moved across privately-owned, opaque, and expensive payment networks like those maintained by Visa, Mastercard, ACH, and SWIFT. Physical currency is an artifact from a previous age.

Given that cryptocurrency coins and payment networks are superior in almost every way to their legacy digital fiat counterparts suggests that fiat currencies--in both their physical and digital forms-- are facing the same fate as the dinosaurs.

The legacy currencies have payment networks that work at scale. Id like to see these miner-sponsored block chains already chewing up massive energy to do a millionth of what the legacy currencies do. Also theft and arbitration and reversability - all handled better by the legacies at the moment.

Im not anti BTC but beyond being a buy and hold digital gold, its not a replacement for a currency in its current form, it will fall over and use tons of energy doing the ledger work.

This is speculation. Time locked contracts would sidestep fees with micro transactions. Anyway, we will have to see how it all goes on the Litecoin testnet. If Charlie Lee is working on it, I trust that guy more than some random youtuber.

I'm definitely not a fan of Lightning on the BTC blockchain, but just a few weeks ago Charlie Lee implemented Lightning on LiteCoin, and executed the first "atomic swap" (i.e. instant, low-fee transaction) between BTC and LTC.

This means you can shift effortlessly between the BTC and LTC networks, and use BTC for your saving and high-value transactions, and LTC for your low-value everyday transactions.

The fact that LTC has increased by 50% since this event seems to confirm that the market likes this new development.

Dude, people aren't switching to BCH as much as you may want them to. It has nowhere near the infrastructure and developer power, plain and simple. Not to mention it has no long term scaling solution. I can fork bitcoin tomorrow to 16 mb, and on and on and on.

I don't give a fuck if people switch to it now or not. The entire ecosystem is going to crash. People should be going to cash. I feel like I'm an idiot for not dumping my IOTA, but I am afraid that I won't be able to get back in at a lower price because so many of the exchanges where it is listed deal in Tether.